


Shatter

by argle_fraster



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Dreams, Eidolons, F/M, Final Fantasy Kiss Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sees him in her strange, magic-filled dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shatter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 edition of the Final Fantasy Kiss Battle at the Final Fantasy Exchange on Dreamwidth.

He finds her sitting by the side of a river that flows backwards, with weeds winding 'round her ankles that hiss when he steps through the underbrush of fire.

"You don't seem surprised to see me," he says, by way of a greeting, and doesn't sit.

Rydia shrugs. "I heard you coming." The truth is, she _is_ surprised to see him, because she never finds others in this world - this half-state, this suspended existence, the line between Eidolons and humans blurred and grayed. And if she was to see anyone in this strange, upside-down world, it certainly wouldn't have been him.

He is sans-armor, and the breeze that smells of sage and sandalwood is playing with the loose ends of his ponytail; it's a splash of yellow against a sky of scorched red. (Or is that the sea? She can never tell anymore which side has floated to the top.) His feet stay firmly on the ground, which is more than Rydia could say the first three times she dream-walked here.

"Do you stay here often?" he asks.

"More often than not," she answers. It's hard to lie here. The truth tugs at her tongue and spills over her lips like red wine, even when she tries to hold it back. "I find solace here, and few other places."

"Even in Baron?"

She looks to him then, fingers clenching back over her palm, hands resting in her lap. The action leaves half-moon marks littered in her skin. "There is no solace in Baron. Not for me. And not for you, either, I should think."

"There's no solace at all," he agrees.

"So what are you doing here?" Rydia asks.

Kain picks up a rock - shaped like a leaf, and possibly it used to be one, solidified into something solid and cutting in the realm that refuses to let anything be real - and tosses it into the river. There is no splash, but after a second, the stone drops back down from the sea-sky and lands a hand span away from his boots. They both watch it as it skips a few paces and then stills against the cracked dirt.

"It is you I most regret," he says, while still staring at the rock and all that he seems to think it represents. (It's just a rock, she thinks, but doesn't voice this aloud. Sometimes, in this world, it's best to let things go unsaid.)

"You regret knowing me?" she asks. "Or letting me live? Or perhaps even coming to find me here, in this godless place?"

His expression is half-amused, and half bordering on something very close to petulance. "No," he answers, patiently. "I regret that you always feared me."

Rydia laughs then; she hasn't feared anything since the flames took her mother from her.

"I don't fear you," she tells him. She sobers, looking down at her fingernails again - they've turned to shells, the looping, spiral shells found on slow-moving snails. "I've never feared you."

"I think perhaps you were the one thing that could have saved me."

She glares at him, hair whipping at her cheek with the force of the movement. "No one could have saved you from yourself."

Kain smiles. "You're probably right."

(Of course I am, she thinks, and hates herself for that.)

"I don't understand what you mean," she says, frustrated; it could be this realm. It warps things, including words, and he could be explaining the use of the feathers on his helm rather than wax philosophical. It might not even really be Kain, though she suspects that it is - real people have a certain air here, like brimstone, like the burning bit of reality that the magic is trying furiously to expel.

He walks to the stone and kicks it, causing it to skitter against the ground again. "I wish I'd told you this. There's something beautifully wild about you. I've always loved that part of you."

"I didn't know you loved any part of me," Rydia says.

"Neither did I," he agrees, and sounds a bit shocked.

The river is flowing faster, and Rydia is afraid to think what it means. She stands, pushing herself up and letting bits of jeweled dirt embed itself in her hands.

"Are you saying that you can't tell me this in the Upperworld?" she asks.

"I think," Kain starts, and then leans in a bit, licking his lip slowly and letting his tongue drag across the flesh, "that I'm not sure what I'm saying anymore."

"But you love something about me," Rydia pushes.

His hand finds her cheek, fingertips grazing the curve of her face. "I love everything about you," he whispers, just before he kisses her.

\--

It takes a few days to get to Baron - there are always things to work out, and shipments to go with, and just because she's making the journey, Rydia finds herself in charge of a particularly dull iron trade manifesto from the dwarves. Still, she arrives with her things in order, and Rosa greets her at the gate with a light kiss to either cheek.

"You really needn't have come all the way here," the other woman says, leading her in through the winding hallways that Rydia will never, ever understand. (They are cold, like her blood now, like the awful, stale wind that greets her nostrils as they move through the old treasure vaults.) "We could have sent you all the updates by carrier and saved you the trouble."

"It's no trouble," Rydia says. "I wanted to see for myself."

Rosa leads her to the second tower, the infirmary that isn't connected to the barracks; this one is private, with heavy, gold-lined curtains that Rydia suspected used to be in the royal bedchambers.

"I'm afraid there's been no change," Rosa explains. Her voice is sad. She doesn't move in, but Rydia thinks she wants to push the hair away from Kain's eyes, the bits that have fallen out and are laying across his forehead.

"And you found him at the base of Mt. Ordeals?" Rydia asks, swallowing hard. She wills him to open his eyes. (He doesn't.)

"Yes," Rosa says. "And he's been in this dream-like state ever since."

Rydia sits down, hard. "You don't need to stay."

"Alright," Rosa agrees, and turns to leave without questioning. Rydia's always liked that about her. "There will be a hot meal for you in the kitchens whenever you're ready."

Rydia waits until the other woman is gone. She waits a long time, because in the real world, her words tend to be stuck in her throat more often than not. It's as if she's forgotten how to use her human body after her time spent with the Eidolons.

"Stupid," she chides, finally, after a very long time has passed and she is sure he will not simply open his eyes to look at her. "I love everything about you, too."


End file.
